Page 16 - BR June 2024 with duck - converted

June 2024 June 2024
were released into the woodlands. On shooting days the “guns” were situated
FUNERAL TRIBUTES along the edge of the woods and the beaters would be lined up at the opposite
side. They would proceed in a line parallel to the guns and noisily progress beating
the ground, trees and bushes with their sticks, forcing the resident pheasants
extremely dire consequences for the ladies in the WAAF towards the guns at the other side of the woods. When the pheasants reached
team in charge of the balloon. Their prompt and the edge of the woods they would be forced out into the open. To ensure that the
courageous action in releasing the balloon from the birds all left at the same time, enabling the guns to shoot as many as possible,
anchoring truck allowed the balloon to fly freely away. The bushes were planted along the margin of the trees in front of where the guns were
V-1 now free to continue on its way, lost control & blew up positioned. Whoever decided that rhododendrons were the answer to the edging
harmlessly on a nearby hill. Unfortunately, the balloon, still of the pheasant drives I am afraid I don’t know but I am sure that the thoughts of
trailing its mooring cable, drifted towards Maidstone The dangling cable then the land owners were influenced by the idea that although the bushes were there
collided with some nearby high tension power cables causing a huge fireball. to ensure that the pheasants all left the trees at the same time giving the “guns” a
The subsequent damage caused loss of power to Maidstone for 24 hours and great opportunity to shoot as many as possible in the easiest way, they also
was always described by father as a win for the Germans! thought that the use of such colourful bushes would help to appease those who
were anti shooting.
Soon after the High Street in Snodland received a direct hit from a V-1, killing 44
village residents. Dad told us that if it had arrived a few minutes earlier it would We live in a completely different world today, estate owners are very dependent
have landed on him as he had just walked down that very street on his way on the income arrived at either by their own farming enterprises or from the rental
home! Hitler seemed to have made Dad a high priority target! of their agricultural land to other practical farmers. Farming today is so different
than it was in the days of pheasant shooting
In I946, the war having finished, Grammar School completed and Mr Hitler
dead, Father, perhaps taking inspiration from his elder brother, Derek, joined The aristocracy have entirely different outlooks today. For example a lady of the
the Royal Navy. Due to his young age of 15 yrs, father joined initially as a Boy past wanted to rent a furnished house in a small German village. Not being a
Engine Room Artificer Apprentice or ‘Boy Art’ as they were known. He German speaker, she contacted the local school master, who spoke a little
subsequently spent four years undertaking his initial naval and technical English. She wanted to ask him to
training at HMS CALAEDONIA in Rosyth, before returning to Chatham naval enquire if the house had a WC. The
dockyard in Kent prior to joining the Fleet. school master contacted the local
pastor, who also spoke a little English.
It was about this time that Father met our mother, Margaret, who was training
to be a nurse at Maidstone Opthalmic Hospital. Mum used to tell us stories of She received the following reply,
how she would meet father and their friends whilst dancing at the former
Archbishops Palace in Maidstone. Soon after this they became engaged. The WC is about seven miles from your
However the Naval Lordships intervened and Father was soon sent to join a cottage in the centre of a pine forest.
ship in Singapore for two years! Mum decided at this point to take a job as a Amid lovely surroundings and is open
Fridays and Tuesdays. This is
children’s nurse to a family that was returning to East Africa. Was this because unfortunate for you if you are in the
her sweetheart had been sent to the Far East? or maybe a feeling of ‘What habit of going regularly, but you will no
was good for the Goose was also good for the Gander’!….the answer to this doubt be glad to hear that a number
loaded question is now (thankfully!) lost in the mists of time. However what we of people take their lunch and make a day of it.
can say is that after an enforced separation that, by today's standards, would The accommodation is good and there are about eighty seats. And if you are late
seem unbelievable , but was then common place, occurring as it did, so soon there is plenty of standing room A bell is rung ten minutes before the WC is open.
after the end of the war, they both returned to the UK and in the Spring of 1954
they were married. Of course the mistake was that the WC was not a Wesleyan Church but a toilet
They bought their first house in Maidstone, however, due to his naval service, On that note I will say goodbye for now and God bless you all for reading this.
they spent much of the next five years apart. Tim was born in 1959 and even
Ted Cox

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